Eikou no THIRTEEN~ Mirai no FOURTEEN~

EDIT - ayatsujik, can't seem to find a working email addy for you. ^^; Your singles are here. Ha'e fun!

(Hullo, newly-friended people. Unbeknownst to you before this moment, friending me means you get cheesy Jpop oldies on the side. Lucky you!)

(...I should pay off Kekkai bandwidth for February, shouldn't I?)

So! There is retro Jpop making the rounds, and I am delighted. Was inspired to spend several hours last evening digging out and ripping Chinese compilation CDs of great age and doubtful vintage. This was going to be an exercise in My Oldies Are Cheesier Than Your Oldies, but instead it's a bit of a Tamaki Koji and Ozaki Yutaka lovefest. Live. XD

Tamaki Koji - Koi no yokan
Tamaki Koji - Aoi hitomi no Erisu

The difference between Anzen Chitai and Tamaki Koji's solo output: Anzen Chitai has electric guitar and Tamaki Koji singing. His solo schtuff has acoustic guitar and whisper-singing. ^^; Thus it is with these, which are actually his solo covers of Anzen Chitai hits. Koi no yokan is a wistful, minor-key waltz; Aoi hitomi no Erisu is a folksong-like ballad. Make no mistake, we're in adult contemporary chillout territory, but facetiousness aside these are some of the most beautiful melodies you're likely ever to find in jpop. If you like Sting unplugged, you'll likely love this.

Ozaki Yutaka - Rosanna
Ozaki Yutaka - I Love You (Live Version)

I babble to the point of yawn inducement about how much I love Ozaki Yutaka, but I rarely post the songs. Not sure why; possibly because I'm convinced he's a bit like French chanson, and it doesn't quite work if you can't understand the lyrics. But then, saints alone know why it works in the first place - I mean, "Rosanna" is eighties pop-country with a harmonica bridge, and yet I can't stop listening to it. One of those cases where the whole is greater than the arithmetic sum of the parts.

I put "I Love You" on, like, every compilation I send out. ^^; So some of you might want the live version.

Nakajima Miyuki - Jealousy, Jealousy

In all honesty, there are better Nakajima Miyuki songs. But this is a) a bona fide jpop classic, and b) weird enough to be worth a listen to any pop music aficionado. It's... proto-Latin, pre- Jpop's obsession with bossa nova and salsa lite, enka gone insanely flamenco. Props to anyone who can figure out the time signature well enough to karaoke the thing. (Though if you feel like trying, be warned that it practically requires Liza Minelli-esque gestures to go along with. ^^;)

Inoue Yousui - Teenager

Y'know, I always think of Inoue Yousui as being sort of like Johnny Halliday. Not that he sounds anything like, thank gawd, but... the same industry position, if that makes sense. Big Emotive Cheese appeal. Like this song, which is all of six years old but is musically of another era. The strings! The backing vocals! I should make a Prince of Tennis music video to it, it'd be a hoot. "Eikou no THIRTEEN~! Mirai no FOURTEEN~! Sekai wa FIFTEEN~! Namida no SIXTEEN~!"

Brief note

luxetumbra, got packages. Why in the name of the good green earth would you have to apologise for your hard drive? You are my hero.

(That being said, I'm currently handling those FMA discs with tongs. Tongs, I say. XD;;)

Currently halfway through episode 68 of TeniPuri. As for manga - it looks like I'm going to have to start following scanlations in Chinese, she says cheerfully. Not that I have anything intelligent to say about the storyline: 209 could basically be summed up as INUI PLS DO MY SANITY A FAVOUR AND NEVER REMIND ME OF TOUYA AKIRA EVER AGAIN KTHX, and I can't think about 210 because the kawaii liquifies my cerebellum. (Sort of like the end of the Cards Arc out of GetBackers, except that - ahem - wasn't what you might call the kawaii. Whatever else you might call it. XD) There's something disturbingly maternal happening here; I've no particular desire for children but common sense would indicate that the only kind of boychild I have a statistic hope of producing would be a skinny geeky thing with inch-thick glasses, who even if you made him do sports extracurriculars would end up getting nicknamed "hakase" by his tennis doubles partner. (ARGH THE CUTE) Maybe if I raise him well he won't turn out too much of a gay stalker. Or maybe I should just stick to Plan A and perpetual singlehood.